Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2)

by Wallace, Pendelton

  He leaned into her and opened his lips. She pressed her face closer and felt in his mouth with her tongue.

  ****

  The rain slacked off. A heavy mist still hung in the air. This was just what they needed. There were no other customers at the Pecos Pit.

  Ted chuckled to himself. This is what Seattleites call good fall weather. He had to face the situation with a little humor. What’s the difference between winter and summer in Seattle? The rain gets warmer. If he wasn’t laughing, he’d start crying.

  Ted and Catrina sat bundled in their parkas at the outdoor picnic tables surrounding what had once been a gas station. Now, the best barbeque restaurant in Seattle, it was takeout only. The picnic tables were a convenience for the customers in warm, summer weather. Only an idiot would be sitting out here in this weather, Ted thought. I guess we are idiots.

  The dark-colored Crown Vic pulled up to the curb. There was plenty of on-street parking. Tom Bremen got out and walked up to the takeout window. In a couple of minutes, he joined Ted and Catrina.

  Ted got his first look at the homicide detective. He was several inches taller than Ted, obviously in good shape. His pockmarked faced showed signs of teenage angst. Man, in high school, we woulda called him “crater face.”

  “I got the pulled pork, side spiked, hot sauce.” Tom sat down next to Catrina. “What did you guys get?”

  “Pork. . .” Ted started to answer.

  “Tom, cut it out.” Catrina cut in. “What did you find out?”

  Tom took a bite of his sandwich, chewed and washed it down with root beer before answering. “They did the autopsy. I had to call in a lot of markers, but I got them to expedite it. If they hadn’t been looking, they wouldn’t have found anything. It looked pretty straightforward. He died of a heart attack.”

  “What do you mean ‘if they hadn’t been looking’?” Catrina hadn’t even unwrapped her sandwich. “What did they find?”

  Tom looked at Ted. “You sure you want to talk about this right now?”

  “He’s good.” Catrina grabbed Ted’s wrist. “He’s in as deep as the rest of us. I could trust him with my life.”

  Ted felt a sense of elation. He had been forgiven. He was part of the family again. He wanted to jump up and down. With a conscious effort, he controlled himself. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

  Tom didn’t look convinced. After a moment, he continued. “The Coroner found elevated levels of potassium in the blood. High salt content.”

  Ted couldn’t restrain himself any longer. “What does that mean?” They hadn’t required any classes in forensics for a computer science degree at the UW.

  “Potassium chloride,” Catrina whispered. “He was poisoned?”

  “Somebody did a good job.” Tom took another bite of his sandwich. “Potassium chloride breaks down real quick. If you didn’t know you were looking for it, you’d never find it. There was a small puncture mark on his neck. The doc’s ruling this death ‘suspicious.’”

  “Okay,” Catrina said. “So who would want to kill Metcalf? He was our prime suspect, now he’s the victim.”

  “Yeah,” Ted said. “If Metcalf was the bad guy, who wanted him eliminated?”

  “Who stood to gain?” Tom asked. “He was locked in a power struggle with Alison Clarke for control of one of the largest corporations in America. She benefits the most from his death.”

  ****

  Catrina’s morning meetings were a pain in the ass. It was just wrong that Catrina and Jeff were so awake and perky. Ted was miserable at this un-godly hour of the morning. How could anybody be expected to function, much less think? Ted lugged his cup of coffee with him to Catrina’s office.

  “Jenn’s working on our arrest.” Cat started abruptly. “Let’s not waste time with that.”

  “What about Jeff?” Ted felt like he was running to catch up. “That Petrocelli dude said he had warrants for all of us.”

  “I talked to Jennifer,” Jeff said. He wore his usual Brooks Brothers suit. He didn’t have a hair out of place. Actually, he didn’t have a hair on his head. “We went down to the court house together and posted bail.”

  “I said we’re not going to waste time on the arrest. Jenn will handle it.” Catrina took control of the meeting. “Let’s talk about what Tom told us. He thinks our client has the best motive for killing Metcalf.”

  “If she did off him,” Jeff said. “She didn’t do it herself. She’s not big enough or strong enough. She would have had to get a choke hold on Metcalf to hold him long enough to inject him.”

  “His office was clean.” Catrina reached for her coffee cup. “No sign of a struggle. Whoever killed him staged the scene to look like a heart attack. He cleaned up any signs of a fight, then put Metcalf in his chair, folded him over his desk. It couldn’t have looked more natural.”

  “That means it must have been a pretty big guy.” Jeff sat back and crossed his legs. “Metcalf is no lightweight. If the assailant injected him, they probably struggled. Metcalf probably collapsed on the floor. Whoever did this had to lift him back into his chair. This wasn’t done by a woman.”

  “At least not by one Alison’s size,” Catrina said.

  “Could she have hired someone to do it?” Ted was coming around.

  “I suppose so.” Jeff gave him an astonished look. “She has money, power. She could probably arrange anything.”

  “Like Detective Bremen said.” Ted was careful to use Tom’s formal title. “Alison had the most to gain. We’re pretty sure that Metcalf was the source of the leak at MS. He was against the Delphi project. He wanted Alison fired so he could get his company back. Things don’t look good for our client.”

  “We’re talking about a woman here with almost limitless ambition.” Jeff nodded toward Ted. “She clawed her way up the ladder at MS. Now Metcalf was threatening to take it all away. That sounds like motive to me.”

  “You guys don’t get it.” Catrina finally weighed in. “You only see the business side of Alison. There’s a softer side to her. A human side. She’s not like that. I can’t imagine her ordering someone snuffed out.”

  Ted’s Spidey sense went crazy inside his head. What the hell is going on here? Cat was seeing the softer side of Alison? Cat never saw the softer side of anyone. She was the most jaded, hardened woman he had ever met. Why would she suddenly start cutting a murder suspect slack?

  “Cat, I think you’re losing perspective.” Jeff apparently agreed with Ted. “We have to look at all sides of this. Our asses are on the line. If Alison did have Metcalf killed and we helped her, we’re complicit. We have enough trouble with the charges we already have against us. We don’t need murder one too.”

  Goddamn it, Jeff was right. Why would Cat stand up for Alison? Think like Chris, be methodical. What had they learned about Alison? She was one of the most powerful women in America, the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world. She managed to manipulate most people to do her will. The employees at MS would lay down their lives for her. She had this big feud going with Metcalf. Metcalf turns up dead. It doesn’t look good for Alison.

  Then, Cat steps up and defends her. Why? Oh yeah, Ted had learned that Alison was having an affair with that Angie chick. And Cat never wore a dress, never cared about her appearance, unless was going to see Alison. Could she . . .

  “Cat, are you and Alison . . .?”

  “Who else might have had a reason to want Metcalf dead?” Catrina ignored Ted’s question.

  ****

  Ted refilled his coffee cup and returned to his desk. Damn. Cat wasn’t being straight with him. All hell broke loose when he kept a secret from Cat, but she was keeping a whopper from him.

  He knew damned good and well that something was going on between Cat and Alison. But what? He’d heard the rumors about Cat; that she liked girls, but he’d met Tom. She obviously liked boys too. Maybe she was a switch hitter.

  Whatever the case, she had lost her objectivity. Ted liked Alison for Met
calf’s murder. How could he prove it to Cat?

  Maybe she was just looking out for herself after all. He was so in over his head. Maybe Gina was right. Maybe he should cash in his chips and take Justin’s offer. He could still walk away from this mess a free man.

  “Higuera.” Catrina’s voice startled him from his reverie. “Let’s do some detecting.”

  “Yeah, sure, boss. What’s up?”

  Cat sat on the edge of Ted’s desk. “Where’s the link between Donna’s death and Metcalf’s? What aren’t we seeing?” Cat asked.

  Ted never failed to notice how well she filled out her jeans. “Isn’t it obvious? Donna was working for Alison. Spying on Metcalf for her. We have the DVD. Metcalf knew what she was up to so, he had her offed.” Ted stopped to look at his boss for a second. Was she going to react? “Metcalf was trying to push Alison out of her job. When she couldn’t get the goods on him from Donna, she had him offed.”

  Amid the busy background noise of the office, a silence hung between them for a long moment.

  “I never knew big business was like this,” Ted said. “I’d expect it from a Mafia don, but not from a nice middle-aged lady from Bellevue.”

  “Sorry, Higuera. I can’t buy it.” Catrina leaned forward on her knees, lowering her face to Ted’s level. “That’s not Alison Clarke. I’ve seen some pretty weird cases in my time. Kids killing, little old ladies killing over Social Security money, mom’s killing their kids to be free to be with their boyfriends, but I always felt something hinky in those cases. I got a gut feel about the perps. I don’t get any bad vibes from Alison.”

  Ted took a deep breath and swallowed. “What kind of vibes do you get from Alison?” He waited for Catrina’s reaction. She sat still, looking at the floor. “What did you do with her, Cat? Did you sleep with her?”

  “That’s none of your business.” Catrina jumped up from Ted’s desk.

  He slid his chair back, afraid she was going to strike him.

  Jesus. She really did. She was going to sell Ted out for a piece of ass. He had to get out. To call Justin.

  “Just a fuckin’ minute, Cat. You nearly took my head off when I didn’t tell you about Gina. Now you’re holding out on me. You’ve got one hell of a secret you’re not sharing.”

  Catrina sat and stared at Ted for a minute. “You’re right. You deserve the truth. We shared an intimate moment. She did come on to me, but I don’t swing that way. I don’t sleep with women.”

  “But, the rumors . . .” Ted looked into Catrina’s eyes.

  “Are just rumors. She wanted to, but I held back. It was enough for me to get a true feel for Alison. She didn’t do this.” Catrina settled back onto Ted’s desk.

  “What about Donna’s husband?” Cat stared off into space. “Could he have gotten to Metcalf?”

  “Not a chance,” Ted said. “Not in the Millennium Systems Tower. You’ve seen the security. A fly couldn’t get in there without a pass.”

  “Okay, so Metcalf was being blackmailed. We have the DVD of someone asking him for more money. It’s pretty obvious that they were talking about taking care of Donna. Maybe the killer was afraid that Metcalf would get cold feet. Turn him in.”

  Ted turned this line of thinking over for a minute. “So we’re looking for someone who is ruthless and ambitious. Someone who recently came into half a million dollars.”

  Cat perked up. “You’ve got to hack back into Millennium Systems. Into their HR system.”

  “Jesus, Cat. They must have over eighty-thousand employees. Where would we start?”

  “This has to be a man. No woman is going to torture another woman like that. Who aspires to the CEO role? Who can Metcalf bribe to do his dirty work?”

  “There must be hundreds, thousands of men working for MS, loyal to Metcalf, who would sell their mothers for a promotion.”

  “Okay, we know it had to be a big man, someone with the strength to do the job. Let’s eliminate anyone under, say five-ten.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair. I could a restrained Metcalf and lifted him into his chair.”

  Cat smiled at him, her first smile of the day. “Yeah, but I don’t think that the average techie is in the shape you’re in.”

  “We still have Schmidt.” Ted took a yellow pad from his desk drawer and started making notes. “He’s been making regular deposits in an offshore bank of just the amount Metcalf was paying the perp.”

  “I’m not buying. Schmidt is getting ready to bail. He's betting against Delphi.”

  “Shit. We got nothin’.”

  Amid the notes on Ted’s pad, he wrote Call Justin.

  Chapter 28

  Ted lay back in his bed, in that wonderful dreamlike state. Oscar lay on his chest, purring, occasionally rubbing his head against Ted’s nose. Gina lay in the crook of his arm.

  Slowly, little by little, the world crept back into his consciousness. Oh yeah. He had something to tell Gina. He had to tell her about Cat. How would she take it?

  “It looks like we’ve got your boss.” He would slide into it gently.

  “Umm.”

  “Embezzling. He’s moving half a million dollars a month offshore. He set up a phony consulting company, then billed it to the Delphi project.”

  “I processed all of those invoices.” Gina sat up in the bed and pulled the sheets up around her chest. “They smelled fishy, but Mr. Schmidt said that they were legit. He was the boss. What was I supposed to do?

  Why do women always do that? Ted wondered. They get naked and sleep with you, Gina was totally uninhibited, then when it’s over, they cover themselves up, like they’re ashamed of their bodies.

  “Did it ever occur to you to go to the police?”

  “Are you nuts? Do you know what happens to whistleblowers? I’d never work again. I have two kids to raise, a house payment.”

  “You know, you don’t look too good in this.” He waited for her reaction. “I tried to tell Cat it wasn’t your fault.”

  “You what! You said you’d keep my name out of this. You told your boss that I made the transactions?”

  “It wasn’t me. We have this forensic accountant. She got in and dug around. She found all of the transactions and stuff. She fingered you. I had to convince Cat that you wouldn’t do it. I told her you were the one who put me onto Schmidt.”

  Gina got out of bed and started to put on her clothes. “Great. Now your felon boss knows about your felon girlfriend. Higuera, you need to watch out who you hang around with.”

  “Gina, don’t be that way.” Ted tossed Oscar aside, got up and went around the bed to Gina. “We’ll get Schmidt. We’ve got tons of evidence. We’ll find a way to nail him without involving you.”

  “I’m the one who made all the false entries.” Gina shook her massive breasts into her bra, her trembling hands fumbling with the hook. “I’m going to look guilty to the police.”

  “The police will never see this.” Ted grabbed her hands, looked into her eyes. “It won’t end up in court. Alison will take care of this herself. She doesn’t want the stockholders to know Schmidt embezzled six million dollars on her watch.”

  “Who told you that? Cat.” Gina pulled away and managed to hook her bra. “The same Cat that’s set you up for five years in prison?”

  “She’s got an in with Alison. Alison will listen to her.”

  “Ted, you're just being naïve. When the shit hits the fan, it’s every man for himself.”

  “No, I trust Cat. She says the evidence all points to Schmidt.”

  “How did she get all of this evidence?”

  Ted looked at the floor. “You don’t want to know.”

  “It wasn’t legal was it?” By now Gina was fully dressed and standing on the staircase. “That’s what you’re going to jail for.”

  “She’ll keep you out of this. She promised me.”

  “Ted, open your eyes. She doesn’t care about you. She doesn’t care about me. She’s only looking out for herself. She’d sell us out in a heartbeat
if it kept her out of jail.”

  “It’s not like that. Cat isn’t like that. She has honor. Integrity. She wouldn’t do that.”

  Tears ran down Gina’s cheeks. “Open your eyes. You’re looking at five years hard time. Do you think she’s willing to do five years for you? Would she do five years for me? She doesn’t even know me. You’ve got to take Justin’s offer. He has a lot of pull. Maybe he can make things right with the DA for me.”

  “I . . . I can’t do it. Cat saved my life. I can’t sell her out.”

  “Ted, you have to choose. You have to make a decision. By doing nothing, you’re making a decision. You’re deciding to go to jail. You’re deciding that I’m going to jail. That my kids are going to grow up without a mom.” Gina stormed out of Ted’s apartment.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, smarting, long after he heard the slamming of the door.

  He knew what he had to do. There, on the bed stand, was Justin’s business card. He just had to pick it up.

  ****

  Catrina rolled over, stretched and blinked her eyes. She loved the cuddly feeling of her down comforter and the down mattress pad on her king-sized bed.

  Sunlight peeked in through the crack in the heavy curtains. She smelled the enticing aroma of coffee wafting in from the kitchen.

  What a night. As she gathered herself together, she noticed the sex toys strewn around the bed and floor. Her leather bustier hung from a floor lamp. They hadn’t even cleaned up after themselves.

  She found her nightgown on the floor and wiggled into it, then grabbed her terry cloth bathrobe from the closet.

  After a quick stop in the bathroom, she made her way out to the kitchen of her nearly century-old Victorian.

  The oak cabinets and center island looked somehow different this morning. Even the stainless steel fronted appliances had a different gleam. Maybe that was because standing in front of the stove, stark naked, Tom Bremen scrambled eggs in a copper frying pan.

  “I made myself at home,” Tom said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Catrina admired his hard body. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. His legs were taught with rippling muscles as he moved, his butt firm and high. Nothing on his body dared sag. Catrina looked down at her own heavy chest. I should be so lucky.